Andirrul glared at Tyrannus. She did not utter a word, feeling that doing so and answering him would be far beneath her. If she would have spoken, she would have cried, Fool! I always have a plan...always, always. You don't see it yet, but you will, and when you do, it will be far too late. It was at times like these that the Dark Lady of the Sith yearned for the ancient Rule of Two. Wrath would understand. She would talk of this with him later. For now, however, she had a former "Jedi whelp" to send on his first mission as a Sith. It would not only be his first mission, but his first...

"Fallen Jedi are one thing," she told Lukas Wraight, "but Sith are another. The former go into exile and commonly join new careers if they don't become Grey Jedi. What is one tenet of our code--our ancient code, which not even that slime-ridden Tyrannus cares about anymore? Through passion, I gain...?"

Lukas hazarded a guess. "Power?"

"Not yet. Passion gives you strength, and strength gives you power. Power gives you victory, and through victory, your chains are broken. The Force shall free you." She gazed at him. "You'll understand in time. For now, where are we, Wraight?"

"Nar Shaddaa."

"Specifically the Refugee Sector--both of us can tell by the smell. Even after all these thousands of years, this is still Nar Shaddaa--the galaxy's cesspit, second only to Nal Hutta. Listen. What do you hear?" Some distant shouting had caught their attention, as had the burgeoning crowd ahead.

Andirrul leaned close to Lukas' ear. "I want you to kill the most dangerous person here. Sense him, or her, through the Force. Do not return until you've come back to me with the body. In a crowd like this, stealth will be key. If you cause any chaos or send the crowd into a panic, then you will fail."

Lukas saluted. "Yes, Dark Lady." He crept forward into the mass of bodies.

"The end is nigh!" cried the grizzled old man haranguing the crowd. "Turn away from your vices, your crimes, and your selfish desires! A dire reckoning is coming--not from the Jedi, or the Sith, but the galaxy itself!"

Lukas waited, sensed his mark, ignited his lightsaber, and deftly stabbed him in the back. With one quick move, he pretended that the man had merely fallen and he himself was only offering assistance. The crowd let him part, more intent on the old man's words than on one "Jedi whelp", and he carried the body back to Andirrul. "It is he," Lukas announced, "who was lethal."

Andirrul smiled darkly. "Indeed. Do you know why?"

"He was the only one in the whole crowd intent on bringing that reckoning."

Her breath caught in her throat in a hard rasp. The Force is strong with this one...stronger than I thought. "Yes. Did the Force tell you that?"

"It did."

The Dark Lady took a sharp dagger out of her belt, which she kept for killing fools, pawns, and sudden attackers, and slit the corpse's left arm open. "See that?" she asked. "Wired with explosives. Vomit if you must." Lukas did so. Next to the muscle and bone were, indeed, explosive devices. This man was a "suicide demolitionist," as they were all called in the holovids these days.

"Now. The reason I had you kill him was not to prevent the threat he posed, but to see if you could sense it and then turn it to our advantage. What's our next move?"

"We tell the old man to watch his mouth, and then show him the devices?"

"Hardly, naive one! We take the body back to the ship and examine it. We set our droids to making bombs out of a few of our more willing pawns. Living ones, that is. No one expects an explosive to lie within flesh of an official-looking officer these days. It's always the dishevelled ones that get pegged."

Lukas bowed to her, and the two returned to the docked Phantasm.

*****************

Pahro Utonula was thin now. Thin and muscular, and tall, with a perfectly oval-domed, bald head. She had spent her half-million credits to go "under the laser", with the results absolutely astonishing. No one would be able to recognize her as the portly P from years past. She had done and learned all she could from being the "Voice of the People". Now she could wear any wig, don any disguise, even that of a male foot soldier. Spies needed to do such things, and she was sure Andirrul would be pleased.